Through rivers of veins on the nameless quest <br />The tide of my life goes hurriedly sweeping, <br />Till it reaches that curious wheel o' the breast, <br />The human heart, which is never at rest. <br />Faster, faster, it cries, and leaping, <br />Plunging, dashing, speeding away, <br />The wheel and the river work night and day. <br />I know not wherefore, I know not whither, <br />This strange tide rushes with such mad force: <br />It glides on hither, it slides on thither, <br />Over and over the selfsame course, <br />With never an outlet and never a source; <br />And it lashes itself to the heat of passion <br />And whirls the heart in a mill-wheel fashion. <br />I can hear in the hush of the still, still night, <br />The ceaseless sound of that mighty river; <br />I can hear it gushing, gurgling, rushing, <br />With a wild, delirious, strange delight, <br />And a conscious pride in its sense of might, <br />As it hurries and worries my heart forever. <br />And I wonder oft as I lie awake, <br />And list to the river that seethes and surges <br />Over the wheel that it chides and urges— <br />I wonder oft if that wheel will break <br />With the mighty pressure it bears, some day, <br />Or slowly and wearily wear away. <br />For little by little the heart is wearing, <br />Like the wheel of the mill, as the tide goes tearing <br />And plunging hurriedly through my breast, <br />In a network of veins on a nameless quet, <br />From and forth, unto unknown oceans, <br />Bringing its cargoes of fierce emotions, <br />With never a pause or an hour for rest.<br /><br />Ella Wheeler Wilcox<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-wheel-of-the-breast/
